Sunday Telegraph 50th anniversary: stories of the 1960s

The idea of these anniversary articles is to tell the 50-year history of The
Sunday Telegraph in 50 stories. Sometimes the stories come in several parts,
with decades separating them. With the passage of time, and changing
circumstances, it is reasonable to expect that the opinions of the leader
writers will also change. This is often the case, but not always.

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John F Kennedy's fateful last motorcade ride

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Winston Churchill pictured in 1940

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England's victorious World Cup team of 1966 hold aloft the trophy

By Nigel Farndale

5:00PM GMT 05 Feb 2011

1 NELSON MANDELA IS IMPRISONED

Take Nelson Mandela, the first of our 50 stories. Given the international climate at the time of his imprisonment in 1964, it would not have been surprising if the paper had sided with the South African government. He was, after all, convicted as a terrorist. But this was not the case.

In the week Mandela was sent to jail, Douglas Brown wrote from South Africa: “If he languishes indefinitely in prison, Nelson Mandela will become the most effective martyr in the history of Africanism. His pre-eminence will not derive from his courage and eloquence, though these are remarkable. They will derive from the fact that he stands in chains at the precise meeting point of two irreconcilable notions of race.”

And on February 11 1990, in the week when Mandela was finally released, we noted: “Nelson Mandela’s moral and political stature grew rather than faded the longer he was behind bars, much to the embarrassment of South Africa’s white National Party government… The government will be deeply nervous about how the townships, crushed into quiescence after the 1984-86 black uprising, will react to their messiah’s return. Mandela himself will set the tone for a new era when he addresses his first public meeting.

“The country’s rulers must hope that Mandela, who said at his 1964 trial for treason that he was prepared to die for 'the ideal of a democratic and free society’, will quickly be reduced to human dimensions. The ANC will seek to enhance his near-mythical appeal as their spearhead in the fight for full black political rights.”

In an interview Mandela gave to The Sunday Telegraph on April 1 1990, he said: “I had confidence because of Mrs Thatcher’s honesty and opposition to apartheid.”

How annoying must that have been to his Left-wing supporters in Britain?

2 RUDOLPH NUREYEV DANCES WITH FONTAINE

One of the newspaper’s strengths from the outset has been its arts coverage. When Rudolf Nureyev made his first appearance at Covent Garden opposite Dame Margot Fonteyn on February 25 196, our critic Susan Lester was in the front row. “His Albrecht — the hero of Giselle — is a fascinating study, which rivets our attention from start to finish,” she wrote.

“Nureyev imparted his emotion with much economy of gesture and subtlety of bearing and timing… There are moments when his concept seems at odds with the Royal Ballet’s, but considering the amount of work involved in bringing them together, and more particularly, in uniting him and Fonteyn, who dances Giselle, the result is amazingly good. Fonteyn obviously wants to do her utmost to co-operate and her performance is the richer for her tenderness and unobtrusive behaviour.”

When, 17 years later, Fonteyn announced she was hanging up her ballet shoes, The Sunday Telegraph was granted an exclusive interview. “Margot Fonteyn opened her hotel room door apologising for her bare feet,” wrote Catherine Stott. “Naturally I couldn’t take my eyes off them after that since they are two of the most famous, hardest wired feet in the business. For one horror-stricken moment I thought her toes were covered in dried blood, that she had danced the nails away, but it turned out to be a gruesome shade of nail varnish.

“The celebrated feet now curiously resemble the shape of a ballet shoe, toes furled over into sawn-off points by a slow process of attrition after 55 years of dancing on them – much as the sea shapes rocks. And all the time she talked she rubbed them tenderly as though they hurt – as well they might.”

3 THE PROFUMO AFFAIR

In the edition of March 24 1963, there was no mention of the Beatles’ first LP, but there was much coverage of the Profumo Affair. The newspaper ran on its front page a drawing by Dr Stephen Ward of Christine Keeler. On June 9 1963, we reported that Ward had been arrested on an immoral earnings charge. He was wearing — the cad! — “shirtsleeves and sunglasses”.

The leading article called the Profumo Affair “the worst scandal in living memory”. It also suggested that Macmillan must have known what Profumo was up to, asking whether it was conceivable that the watching of a minister by MI5 could go on without the knowledge of the prime minster. “Our post-war spree had to end one day,” we concluded. “It is distressing and mortifying that it should end like this in scandal, weakness and mendacity.”

It is safe to assume that Macmillan no longer regarded The Sunday Telegraph as his favourite Sunday newspaper.

4 KENNEDY IS ASSASSINATED

It is rare that a big story breaks on a Saturday or a Friday night, but that was what happened in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. The paper had time to prepare an extended picture story over many pages.

The front-page lead was that Prince Philip and the Prime Minister would be attending the funeral. The leader column had a black box around it and its headline was “Our Tragedy Too”. “Not for decades has political assassination struck more closely at British hearts. The killing itself, in its entire unexpectedness, was shocking enough. But what stirred the pity of millions of us were thoughts of Kennedy’s youth, of the recent impact he made in Britain and of the special affection he had for London.”

Nowadays, with the special relationship struggling more than it has at any time since the Second World War, the final paragraph of that leader in 1963 makes for affecting reading. “Some people scoff at the special relationship… But when Americans suffer a tragedy of this degree of horror it is apparent to everyone that the British share the experience in a specially poignant and vivid way. Eisenhower was felt to be our President, too, when he came to London four years ago; and the feeling was as deep as the affection and interest that many Americans feel towards our Royal Family – but quite different in quality. Kennedy was working his way towards a similar position in this country, especially among the young.”

In 1966, McLachlan stood down as editor and was replaced by the 60-year-old night editor Brian Roberts, a dark and fierce Welshman of small stature known around the office as Scruffy. According to Duff Hart-Davis, who wrote The House the Berrys Built, a history of The Daily Telegraph, Roberts was a great snapper of pencils and his aggression seemed to stem from his inferiority complex. As well as being dishevelled, he had few teeth, which made him shush his “s”s — it was only when he was promoted to editor that he got himself a proper set of false teeth. Although he had read Greats at Oxford he was at heart a farmer and would head home to his farm in Sussex every chance he got. Worsthorne considered him a “martinet”.

But he does seem to have been open-minded, by the standards of the time. By 1967 he had introduced a women’s home and fashion page and, this being the Age of Aquarius, one of its earlier features was a guide to making a kaftan. “If you have a length of dress fabric handy, plus a long zip, you could actually make our summer dress today and wear it tomorrow. The only bore is having to draw the diagram.”

5 SGT PEPPER’S LONELY HEART’S CLUB BAND

Although there was, as yet, no pop column — only jazz and classical — there was a review of arguably the most groundbreaking album in pop history in the “What’s Happening” column by T S Ferguson. “The Beatles’ new LP Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band (Parlophone) confirms their position as the intellectual’s favourite pop group. In a West End pub I saw the record, with its brightly recognisable cover 'staged’ by Peter Blake, the subject of enthusiastic debate by some people who came out of their teens a considerable time ago.

“To the pure all things are pure: I’m not sure I’d have known of the supposed connection with drugs of the final number A Day in the Life if the BBC hadn’t let me know by banning it. On the other hand, there is When I’m 64, which sounds so much like spoof-George Formby that I was expecting an extended break on the ukulele-banjo, or at the very least the ukulele-sitar. The sitar does get a good showing on Within You Without You, the backing of which is largely Indian with an occasional Arab sound. She’s Leaving Home is the counterpart of Eleanor Rigby on the previous LP, this time with a sort of interior Greek chorus.

“The Beatles are here pushing at the boundaries of pop, ranging in space and time, bringing in folk art, Oriental and music hall influences. The music hall side is particularly noticeable, not least in the title piece, which is also used as a link, giving the whole record coherence. It is a planned, balanced programme rather than the usual ad hoc collection. It has humour, pathos, a kind of poetry.”

6. THAT WORLD CUP WIN

In 1966, the greatest day in English football was also a good day for the Sunday papers, because the World Cup final was on a Saturday. Not only that, it was in London.

“London went World Cup-wild last night after England beat West Germany 4-2 at Wembley,” we reported. “Traffic in the West End was at a standstill. An AA spokesman said at midnight: 'It’s like V E night, election night and New Year’s Eve rolled into one.’ ”

The report said there were “good-natured boos” for Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan when they appeared at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington to greet the England team. You have to wonder what a bad-natured boo sounds like.

Nowadays, a good image is made the most of, as was the case when England got through to the final of the Rugby World Cup in 2007. We devoted the front page to a photograph of a despondent Jonny Wilkinson. The iconic image of Bobby Moore being hoisted aloft, by contrast, had to fight for space with other stories, including a scoop about Prince Philip being snubbed by the Institute of Physics, who rejected him as an Honorary Fellow.

7. THE SIX-DAY WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In international affairs, one consistency over the years is The Sunday Telegraph’s support for Israel. In 1967 we wrote: “The six-day Middle East war ended last night, according to a United Nations spokesman in Tel Aviv.” Inside was a four-page feature showing the war in pictures including a large image of General Moshe Dayan.

An excited leader proclaimed: “Israel today bestrides the Middle East. Not a single Arab government is unaffected by the reverberations of her victory. They may wish to continue mouthing the odious slogan 'Israel must be destroyed’. But the overwhelming impracticability of such an aim, and the tragicomic absurdities of continuing to proclaim it, must surely soon begin to impinge, if not on the Arab people, at least on their leaders.” Poignantly, it added: “This is the hope. Defeat can sometimes turn a conquered people sour and bitter.”

8. MARTIN LUTHER KING IS ASSASSINATED

On April 7 1968, three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the leader writer reflected upon the shadow that had been cast across the entire Western world. “It is not enough to express shocked indignation at the monstrous assassination of Martin Luther King. What is so dreadful is that this kind of mad, brutal violence against negroes is a normal part of American life in the South.”

The following week, the new Race Relations Bill was to be introduced to parliament and a certain speech was to have a huge impact. For now, the leader concluded: “Let the life and death of Martin Luther King be a warning, an example and an inspiration.”

9. THE RIVERS OF BLOOD SPEECH

Two weeks later, on April 21, the front-page headline was “Mr Powell forces the race issue”. There was no mention of rivers of blood but instead the report noted that the shadow defence minister yesterday made an “emotive almost demagogic speech that in tone even more than content went far beyond official Conservative policy”. The reporter, Ian Waller, understood that Edward Heath had not been consulted about it but he quoted a Conservative spokesman as saying the speech was “roughly in line with other statements that have been made on the subject”.

But some Conservatives were not amused. Nicholas Scott MP called Enoch Powell’s speech “a monstrous distortion”. The sub-headline to the piece read “Blood in Tiber” and quoted the speech accurately: “As I look ahead I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman I seem to see 'the River Tiber flowing with much blood’.”

Peregrine Worsthorne saw voluntary repatriation as the answer to Britain’s immigration question. “Some of us, particularly among the younger generations and among those with a decent education, can truthfully affirm that we have no colour prejudice,” he said.

“For this we have every reason to be thankful. But a great many others have not been spared this misfortune. I know – we all do – many decent people who are genuinely frightened of negroes: who believe in their inferiority. Of course this is a form of mental disorder, of paranoia, but surely… it is no more susceptible to legal prohibitions and punitive treatment than all the other mental conditions.”

The Enoch Powell story refused to go away and, looking for a fresh angle to it the following week, T E Utley profiled the wife of (and secretary to) a politician in a storm. “Pamela Powell has often been described as the ideal politician’s wife,” he wrote.

“A soldier’s daughter, she is efficient and downright. I am prepared to swear, however, that she does not write her husband’s speeches, that she does not even insert friendly little human touches into them without his consent… Experience, she would tell you, has taught her that in the long run her husband’s judgments do prove right, but I would be surprised to learn that this spared him from a good deal of caustic criticism en route.”

10. THE THATCHER INTERVIEW

Margaret Thatcher would later call T E Utley “the most distinguished Tory thinker of our time”. As for descriptions of The Iron Lady herself, well, in 1969 they were few and far between. In fact, one of the first national newspaper interviews with her was to appear in The Sunday Telegraph on October 5 that year.

The writer, Ivan Rowan, had quite a scoop on his hands, though its significance would not be appreciated for another 10 years. “Mrs Margaret Thatcher is a very pretty woman in a soft, suburban way, with a nice mouth and nice teeth and large, round dolly eyes, like a candy box tied off with two shiny bows of blue ribbon.”

What, he asked her, was she top of the form for at school? “No smile: 'Pretty well everything.’ Many people feel a spasm of alarm on meeting Mrs Thatcher, who at 44 now takes over from Sir Edward Boyle as Opposition spokesman on education. They are disturbed by the sci-fi contrast between those peaches-and-Ealing good looks and the metallic, transistorised intellect behind them…

“She has been called a middle-of-the-roader and it is true that she voted, for example, in favour of the homosexual and abortion reforms, but she wants to bring back hanging for sadistic killers. She has one of the best minds in politics and intends, as Dexter once said of cricket, to go as far as the game will carry her. 'But no woman in my time will be Prime Minister,’ she told me. 'Or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary. Not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be PM; you have to give yourself to it 100 per cent’.”

Rowan concluded: “Mrs Thatcher has a slow attractive smile, but even quite experienced parliamentarians can sometimes find her chilling to cross. Something happens to her eyes, like a cold wind passing over a Norfolk beach.”

11. THE MOON LANDING

In1969, there was only one big story: the moon landing. Peregrine Worsthorne rose to the journalistic challenge and was in apocalyptic mood: “Man is marvellous. Even if the world were to come to an end, either blown to pieces by thermonuclear holocaust, poisoned by pollution, or suffocated by overpopulation, man has engineered, literally, an escape route. That surely will be the supreme significance of his first footsteps on the Moon. A great burden is lifted from the human mind. There are new horizons.”

12.MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS

Given he was fully sighted, what on earth would The Sunday Telegraph’s television critic Philip Purser make of the first ever episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, broadcast in October 1969? “The best feature of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is the way joke leads to joke,” he wrote.

“A rather ponderous sketch about sheep attempting to fly suddenly switches to a real piece of dotty invention, two voluble French aerospace experts expounding on a supersonic sheep… when this leaping from the moving traffic succeeds you really feel quite exhilarated. When it fails, of course, there’s a bump to Earth. I confess to a weakness for this school of comedy and Cleese remains its supreme practitioner.”

13. THE CHURCHILL SERIALISATION

One early Sunday Telegraph tactic for building up readership was to serialise important books, but purchasing the rights for a work as important as the official life of Winston Churchill proved less than straightforward.

Negotiations were begun by his son Randolph in 1964. Churchill was paid £50,000, and Randolph and the Churchill trustees were paid £200,000. But work had not progressed far when Churchill died in 1965. As Michael Berry put it: “Old Churchill went down with the money. He liked tips in five figures.” When Randolph died in 1968, the work was completed by the historian Martin Gilbert, who was easier to deal with.

But compared to the fiery Randolph, Genghis Khan would have been easier to deal with, as this strange story reveals. McLachlan, the editor, visited Randolph at his home near East Bergholt and upset him with a comment about appeasement.

As Gilbert later described: “With a trembling of the whole body, Randolph rose from the table, strode over to the sideboard, picked up a carving knife, and, his face contorted with anger, shook the knife at the editor and bellowed savagely: 'People like you should have been shot by my father in 1940.’ Then, turning from the table, the knife still held high, he strode out of the room.”